There is a final point I do not wish to gloss over. Just as we must understand the ruling elites of rich countries whose choices determine technology types for both rich and poor, so we must confront the problem of ruling elites in the Third World. There is no doubt that many of their members may find an interest - either financial or in terms of career - in cooperating with the purveyors of unadapted and unadaptable technology. There is also no doubt that these elites generally insist that priority be given to luxury goods and to the cities where most of them live. They may give little or no thought to the needs of their poorer compatriots. We can all recite tales of corruption, bribery, or just plain deals in which TNCs and local authorities and businessmen work hand in glove for mutual interest and profit.
I still believe, however, that many members of these elites are true nationalists and are working for the betterment of their countries under extremely difficult conditions. It is to such people that I should like to direct my closing remarks.
By the very fact that rich countries are rich, their technology carries with it an aura of invincibility and of perfection. It must be good since it has, apparently, brought wealth to the nations which produced it. This is a myth, but a very powerful one. The existence of this myth proves that rich countries do not merely dominate our economy. They also dominate our concepts and ideas - and we are all to some extent the victims of this dominant ideology. The power of this ideology also testifies to the poverty of developed country scholarship. As scholars, we haven't demystified our own societies and our own technology. It is with this belief that I devote much of my own time to a critique of the dominant agribusiness technologies in hopes that such work may in some small way help to clear the air and prepare the ground for scientific and technological renewal in the Third World.
You may have found my remarks excessively negative, but they, too, have been aimed at air-clearing and ground-preparing. I do not wish to make a plea here for so-called 'appropriate' or 'alternative' technology in the classic way this debate has been presented. Third World countries are right to be wary of 'appropriate' technology when this term actually means 'second- rate'. 'Appropriate' technology can be a way of allowing the same old TNCs - or their younger sisters - to introduce technology which may be smaller-scale but which is just as dependency- creating. Some countries can't afford the biggest and brightest, but they can still contribute to corporate profits at their own level. And this technology does not even necessarily benefit the poorest people in society, as the recent development of biogas plants in India has demonstrated.
What I do hope is, first, that Third World decision-makers will take a far more critical look at what they assume to be advanced technology and will recognize all the hidden costs - including the social and cultural costs - that the purchase of this technology entails.
Second, I hope they will foster and encourage on every possible occasion local solutions to local problems. The pharmaceuticals factory at Savar is one excellent example, and because it is already effective and can become even more effective, we may be absolutely certain that the TNC drug firms in Bangladesh will fight back. I look forward to learning that this fight has been won by Savar and Savar's supporters.
Third, those of us who would like to see authentic and autonomous development in the Third World - the kind of development which cannot be accomplished under the present regime of dependency - do not say Small is Beautiful or Big is Beautiful but that Choice is Beautiful. Every technological decision should be aimed at giving the country the maximum number of options. In my view, the most direct road to greater flexibility and to the creation of wealth and a decent livelihood for all is through the choice of decentralized, labour-intensive technologies. But 'decentralized' and 'labour-intensive' do not necessarily mean 'simple'. Some of these choices may, indeed, be far more sophisticated than anything the West is in a position to offer. This would be the case, for example, with agricultural technologies based on polyculture, crop interactions, and environment-enhancing crop protection techniques. By comparison, Western agricultural methods are extremely crude.
Advocates of autonomous development further believe that there are enormous reservoirs of hidden creativity in the Third World which are at present stifled or going to waste. Allowing this creativity to surface means taking the knowledge of peasants and workers into account and building upon it to improve existing techniques. Such an approach demands a great deal of political courage, because it conflicts with so many established interests at home and abroad.
If I may make one last recommendation to technological decision-makers it is this: The next time someone calls you a technocrat, be proud of the title. Remember that it comes from the Greek kratia or kratos meaning 'power' or 'strength'. This power and strength can serve the cause of outsiders and place your country under the yoke of dependency. But with the help of your people, it can also make you free.
6
BIOBUSINESS: LIFE FOR SALE
In June 1984, my friend and colleague John Cavanagh organized a conference at the Institute for Policy Studies (TNI's sister Institute in Washington, DC) on the theme 'Meeting the Corporate Challenge'. It turned out to be an interesting and successful mix of economists and academic specialists on several industries, trade unionists and com-munity organizers, mostly Americans. John needed someone to write about the biotechnology industry, at that time quite new but growing fast. He picked me, knowing I had recently helped on a (UK) Central Television-Channel Four film called 'The Gene Business', directed by Alan Bell. As the on-screen presenter and narrator of the film, I'd given myself a cram course in biotechnology but was far from being an expert in the field. Happily, the television researchers had pulled together part of the documentation, so I did not have to start from scratch.
The context of the IPS conference explains why this piece is principally US-oriented and concentrates on the 'corporate challenge' there. John hadn't left me much time to prepare my conference communication, so, true to George Bernard Shaw's Law ('I have written you a long letter because I did not have time to write you a short one'), the original version was too detailed. I've cut it by about a quarter for publication here and made some stylistic alterations, but, just as with other pieces in this collection, have left my actual views untouched, warts and all.
In particular, I should have paid attention, and did not, to the possible consequences of mass release of genetically engineered organisms into the environment. On this subject, see Paul Hatchwell, 'Opening Pandora's Box: The risks of releasing genetically engineered organisms', in The Ecologist, Vol. 19 no. 4 (July-August 1989).
'Why trouble to make compounds yourself when a bug will do it for you?'
Biologist J. B. S. Haldane, 1929 (when asked his views on chemists)
I
If you believe, as I do, that there is no such animal as 'pure science'; that all scientific activity takes place in a political and economic context which influences the choices and directions of research; that in advanced capitalist societies this context will favour science which contributes both to enhanced profits and to increased social control; then you will find a perfect case-study in the burgeoning biotechnology industry.
'Biotechnology' in the strict sense has existed for millennia - ever since people have practised beer-brewing, cheese-making, or bread-baking with yeast, all of which put micro-organisms to work in order to achieve a desired culinary result. People who recycle garbage into compost for their gardens are also using biotechnology to their advantage.
The term as it is understood today in the corporate culture of the 1980s is, however, new enough not to appear in the 1976 Concise Oxford Dictionary. Let us begin, therefore, with some home-made definitions.
Back to basics: the Greek bios = life; tekhne'= art; tekhnologia— systematic treatment. So biotechnology = systematic application of human art (and artifice) to use, control or modify life-processes.
A more modern definition, indicating a healthy regard for economic facts o
f life, is this one: 'Biotechnology may be defined as the utilization of microbial, plant or animal cells, or their constituents, to provide goods and services.'1
But to return to the scientific context, let us recall one of the events which precipitated the so-called economic crisis of the early 1970s. This was the sudden emergence, in 1973- of OPEC on the international scene. The 'oil-price shock' was subsequently blamed for all the ills of the West. Even though authoritative bodies like the OECD announced that increased oil prices did not account for more than 1-2 per cent of Western inflation, the common perception of businessmen and ordinary people alike was that Third World upstarts were successfully racketeering Western industry.
What, exactly, was it that the OPEC countries largely controlled? Not just supplies of petrol and heating fuel, but the natural resource upon which a multitude of major industries, from fertilizers to plastics to synthetic fabrics, were based. In dictating the prices of petroleum, they affected not just a source of energy but one of the world's most important raw materials; they held a controlling interest in the geospheric resource base.
In the advanced capitalist countries, OPEC's emergence as an important piece on the international chessboard presented a specific challenge to science. Over the past ten years, science in these countries has been quietly providing a means of transition from the geosphere to the biosphere as a source of non- appropriable raw materials for industrial production. A major goal of biotechnology is, then, to use biological raw materials in order to do everything that could formerly be done with petroleum, and to create many wholly new products besides.2
In less than ten years, biotechnology has moved from the gleam-in-the-eye stage, to the feverish competition of rival corporate labs sprouting faster than cultures in agar jelly, to full-scale industrial manufacture and distribution of at least a few biotech products. Compared with this accelerated pace of development, the railroad, the automobile and the computer were economic snails.
The upheavals this new industry will create are, I believe, more profound than those that steam power, the internal combustion engine or information processing brought about in other times. The media have cried 'Revolution' so often that we do not leap to attention when another is predicted. This time, though, the 'bio- revolution' touted by journalists with startling originality is probably for real.
Those who are anticipating or dreading the moment when the economic crisis grows severe enough for capitalism-as-we-know- it to disappear can stop rejoicing or worrying, as the case may be. Another industrial shining knight has appeared on the horizon: though he may not be the definitive answer to free-enterprise prayers, he does bring remarkable new investment opportunities and a host of potential products that aren't simply replacements for old ones, but truly new items that will expand markets. Just behind him follow dozens of ancillary activities, from making enzyme amylase processing equipment to publishing literature servicing the biotechnicians to training the avant-garde lawyers who will thread their way through the thickets of life-process law. All this will provide gainful employment for some - mostly the highly educated - and remarkable profits for a favoured few.
II
Citizens and consumers should understand that even before they may purchase present or potential biotech products, they will have already paid for them. This they have done indirectly through their contributions to the profits that built the great private family foundations; or directly through funding public research with their taxes. Although the biotechnology industry is a product of the last decade alone, the scientific activity which allowed its existence has a much longer history.
The processes which lead to setting certain scientific goals rather than others; the debates, the in-fighting, the struggles for funding which accompany these processes are all part of the economic and political context which determines how people will be affected by any industry that emerges from them. Thus a brief history of the underpinnings of this industry and a succinct description of earlier scientific achievements are relevant here.
The United States has not always looked upon an organized science policy as a function of government. Not until the onset of World War II was coordination of scientific endeavours recognized as necessary for national survival. Earlier in the century, especially during the 1930s, science policy formulation fell chiefly to major private foundations, with the Rockefeller Foundation in the forefront. Indeed, the terms 'molecular biology' and 'sub-cellular biology' were first coined in this Foundation's Annual Report in 1938.
The growth and development of molecular biology were consciously fostered by the Foundation's then Director, Warren Weaver, who speculatively compared the breakthroughs that could be achieved in biology with those that had already taken place in particle physics. His analogical argument held that, if the atom could be split with far-reaching scientific and social consequences, then so could the living cell. Weaver wanted the credit for creating this new scientific discipline. He pointed out in particular that the Rockefeller Foundation, under his leadership, had contributed S90 million to molecular biology between 1932 and 1957 and he obtained written testimonials from numerous scientists to that effect.3
Edward Yoxen believes that in creating the new discipline of molecular biology, Weaver and Rockefeller knew exactly what they were doing:
What Weaver did was to develop a system of patronage and direction of research, i.e. to bring modem management to science ... [Throughout the '30s he] channelled extremely valuable support... to a number of scientists whose work coalesced in the post-war discipline of molecular biology. But the significance of the programme lies not only in its having accelerated a selected number of linked lines of technical and theoretical activity. Weaver's refinement of bureaucratic techniques and his development and application of a new mode of control over science illustrated ... that research could be selectively supported and officially managed.4
The 'horse's mouth' on matters pertaining to molecular biology is doubtless J. D. Watson who, with Francis Crick, cracked the riddle of DNA's structure, about which more in a moment. At the 1983 Thirtieth Anniversary Conference celebrating the publication of Watson and Crick's historic paper in Nature, Nobel laureate Watson remarked,
I guess people like me have lots of debts to acknowledge ... there were two unique patrons - people who protect you if you're trying to do something different. One was the Rockefeller Foundation. It really started the thing... it gave money (to several projects and institutions with which Watson was associated) ... the Rockefeller Foundation did this because of one man, Warren Weaver ... Weaver provided a spirit in which younger people could think.5
The wartime and post-war social context of science was a quite different one from that of the 1930s. In 1944, the Public Health Service Act provided legislative authority for the government to grant research funds to universities - an authority which continues to this day. The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation were similarly established by Congress after the war. From the initial $3 million in public funds allocated for basic biomedical research in 1948, the annual figure has now climbed to over $3 billion. For the past forty years, as an MIT Professor of biology points out, 'American taxpayers [have] financed the training of biomedical researchers, the equipping of their laboratories, the salaries of support staff and the purchase of supplies and material [as well as] the organization of open scientific meetings, travel to those meetings, the publishing of scientific journals and the fiscal support for publishing papers.'6
Let us now note an interesting phenomenon (or, rather, its absence). Whereas major American corporations have for decades made heavy research investments in chemistry (e.g. DuPont), physics (e.g. General Electric), or cybernetics and information theory (e.g. Bell Telephone, IBM); whereas their scientists have often made outstanding advances in these fields; one would seek in vain a single company devoting comparable time and money to basic biomedical research.
The likeliest candidates would be large
pharmaceuticals firms. Their research, however, was and is of a different nature, focusing almost exclusively on remedies, not on causes of disease. Research on causes might soon obviate the need for remedies, and thus for many corporate drugs, some of which must be absorbed by captive-purchaser patients for years if they are to maintain their health.
Curative strategies undertaken against major diseases like cancer, as Lewis Thomas has explained in his superb book, The Lives of a Cell, are hugely expensive and represent:
... halfway technology in the sense that these measures are directed against the existence of already established cancer cells, but not at the mechanisms by which cells become neoplastic ... This kind of technology costs an enormous amount of money ... The only thing that can move medicine away from this level of technology is new information, and the only imaginable source of this information is research ... The real high technology of medicine ... comes as the result of a genuine understanding of disease mechanisms, and when it becomes available it is relatively inexpensive and relatively easy to deliver.7
The last things the drag or the hospital-based health-care industries want, since they play by normal corporate rules, are measures which are 'relatively inexpensive and relatively easy to deliver'.